


In the morning I'll be with you

by risinggreatness



Series: Circle 'round the sun [91]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Non-Graphic Smut, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 15:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3386129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/risinggreatness/pseuds/risinggreatness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia in the aftermath of Jabba’s palace</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the morning I'll be with you

No one glances over at her out of deference or modesty. Leia’s grateful, though it makes her feel somehow more unclean than she already does.

Han is the only one who looks her direction ( _not that he can see_ ). Leia stares right back at the horizon; resolutely, blinking stray sand out of her eyes, shuddering against the wind. She feels her skin blister.

At some point a hand on her shoulder – which should have startled her, but doesn’t – drops her back into the present.

“You want me to get that off?” Luke asks softly.

Leia’s not sure what he means until he taps the collar around her neck. It thuds against her collarbone.

“Right,” she says, voice dry from disuse, from this place.

Freed of it, she almost feels more exposed. She watches as Luke hurls it off the fast-moving skiff, quickly gone from both of their sight in the endless dunes.

“Thank you,” is all else she can manage.

He leaves her alone after that.

The Falcon remains where she and Chewie left it; a testament to one of the few unchanging things in her life since the war began in earnest.

She and Lando help Han up the ramp.

“I can do this myself you know,” he grumbles, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the bottom of the ship.

Leia lets go.

It’s hard to see him stumble around the ship, though he does not lack for certainty, only coordination. Leia’s own mind drifts to the Falcon being rocked by asteroids, by cannon fire, and the unsteady balance that existed then.

“Damn it.”

Han doesn’t actually fall, though he nearly does hit a console. Chewie’s the one to maneuver him to safety this time.

“Why don’t you sleep it off?” she suggests. To her surprise, he doesn’t protest.

( _A year ago, the comment would have started a shouting match. Leia needs the year back._ )

Assured he is lying down, a task done without additional bruising, she does not contemplate what to do next. The folded-up uniform, always intended for her return waits like a welcoming gift in one of the bunks, though she doesn’t make it that far yet.

“Hey,” Luke says awkwardly, by way of announcing himself.

Leia finds herself getting angry. Angry the plan didn’t go like it was supposed to; angry it took Luke as long as it did for him to come rescue all of them; angry her dignity was stripped from her, simply because of a fucking Hutt.

“Hey,” is her only answer back.

He looks down at his boots as soon as she makes eye contact.

“Um, I don’t want you to worry where I’ve gone off to, but I’m going home.”

Leia stares.

“Just for a little while.”

It takes a moment for it to settle in what he means by ‘home.’ It’s a concept that seems abstract and unobtainable to Leia most days, so she wonders how he can manage it.

She puts on the best smile she can muster ( _it must look weak and insincere, but it really isn’t – she hopes he knows that_ ), and extends an arm, accepting his blasted hand for a squeeze of reassurance. ( _The metal joints stick out for absent bone._ )

“Be careful.”

He nods and heads towards the corridor.

“Come back.”

He doesn’t turn around.

She returns to her original purpose.

The shower serves a dual function. One: to wash away the grime of the planet, the grime of the palace. Two: its tight quarters contain her, make her feel safe, despite banging elbows against the sides. Here she can cry and there’s no one to see, here she can physically bottle the anger that seeps through her.

They’re all together again. Why does it all feel wrong?

When the last of the hot water goes cold and the worst of her anger drains away with it, Leia readies for the two things she must do now, before she goes completely mad.

Her braid is left long ( _there shouldn’t be much reason to keep it up, if she gauges right_ ), the uniform comfortingly loose.

She takes the pile of metal which held her captive up in her arms and marches through the hold, past Chewie and Lando and the droids, and down the ramp into the afternoon suns.

She makes a considerable distance between her and the ships before stopping. It doesn’t take a lot to dig out a deep enough hole with the toe of her boot. Dumping the trash unceremoniously in, she kicks the sand back, some of it flying back, stinging her arms and her face.

Like the collar before it, someday it will wear down to nothing but the sand that consumes it.

Arms lighter, she marches back to the ship and waits for Han.

\----------

Leia’s rediscovered boldness is fueled by many things.

She wants Han. There’s no hiding from that any more. She’s been staring it baldly in the face for a year, unable to act on it. She cannot take back regrets of not acting sooner, the convenient excuse, ‘he’s leaving,’ all too easy. Not with her hands taking every inch of him in.

( _Any self-consciousness of the fact he has been with so many more than her falls away fast._ )

But more than anything, she wants someone ( _no, only Han_ ) to want _her_. To remember she is a conscious, living being, capable of her own desires. Not a leashed toy for ogling and worse.

( _She thanks the gods for the unexplained, that no one, not even Jabba, got away with more._ )

Han grins with delight into her thigh at her small ‘oh,’ and everything quickly unravels inside. Where she was willing and ready – so ready – she stiffens at the memory of leering faces.

Why, why did she have to place Han among them?

At her instantaneous coldness, Han stops.

“You alright?”

She swallows back a sob, but shakes her head.

Without hesitation, he rises to the bunk with her, pulling her close. The reassurance of _his_ warm body around her quells the building tightness in her chest. She never truly appreciated how much larger than her he is. Nothing’s getting past him.

He places a stray kiss on her bare shoulder. He needs her too; something warm against him that isn’t the dark of his carbonite prison.

They need to cling to each other in these last days. They do not drift to sleep, only listen for the thrum of blood pumping through the other.

**Author's Note:**

> See author bio for discussion on this 'verse.


End file.
